


Wish You Were Here

by desoto_hia873



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 18:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6162520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desoto_hia873/pseuds/desoto_hia873
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-<i>Chosen</i> and post-<i>Not Fade Away</i>, Angel brings Buffy some bad news in Rome, and Buffy accidentally changes the world. This is a Work In Progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first chapter of my entry for [](http://spicklething.livejournal.com/profile)[**spicklething**](http://spicklething.livejournal.com/) and [](http://cindergal.livejournal.com/profile)[**cindergal**](http://cindergal.livejournal.com/)'s [Welcome Back to the Hellmouth Ficathon](http://kellyhk.livejournal.com/147984.html).

This was written for [](http://elsaf.livejournal.com/profile)[**elsaf**](http://elsaf.livejournal.com/). I won't give her story requests just yet, but one of them--"no character deaths"--is briefly violated. Key word being briefly, and I promise a happy ending! This isn't an angst fic.

Huge thanks to [](http://yourlibrarian.livejournal.com/profile)[**yourlibrarian**](http://yourlibrarian.livejournal.com/) and [](http://sunnyd-lite.livejournal.com/profile)[**sunnyd_lite**](http://sunnyd-lite.livejournal.com/) for the emergency last minute beta. That'll teach me to write things down on a calendar.

Title: Wish You Were Here  
Setting: Rome, post- _Not Fade Away_  
Rating: PG  
Word count: 1784 (this part)  
Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. [He said so.](http://www.livejournal.com/users/desoto_hia873/80744.html)

~*~

“Dawn?” Buffy checked her watch and called up the stairs again. “Dawnie, you’re going to be late! Antonio’s mother is _not_ going to be impressed if you’re late for your first family dinner with him.”

Dawn appeared in the bathroom doorway, her eyes wide and panic stricken; one hand struggled to put on a high-heeled shoe, while the other was engaged in brushing her teeth.

“Ung co-ing, ung co-ing!”

She teetered on the slender heel of the shoe she was already wearing, failed to regain her balance, and nearly pitched headfirst into the doorframe. The hand with the toothbrush saved her from a fall at the last second, but flecks of foam spattered onto the front of her black dress. She groaned and rolled her eyes, then stomped back into the bathroom to clean herself up.

Buffy grinned as she went to get Dawn’s coat and purse from the closet. It was entertaining watching Dawn discover the hazards of dating and meeting mothers of boyfriends. Antonio was a nice guy and probably worth the anxiety that this dinner was causing, but hey--what were little sisters for if not to tease and have a little fun with?

Heels firmly on this time and hands fanning the damp spots on her dress, Dawn reappeared in the hallway and clattered down the stairs. Buffy helped her into her coat. “Now remember: two kisses to say hello--that’s for Signora Rossi, _not_ Antonio--first on the left cheek, then on the right...”

Dawn rolled her eyes again. “I know, Buffy, I know.” She turned to face her sister. “Do I look okay?”

Buffy’s expression softened as she took in the elegant shoes, the sleek black dress, and the expertly applied make-up. Little Dawnie, all grown up. She gave her a smile and a quick hug.

“You look wonderful. Antonio’s mother will love you. Now, go. Go! Don’t keep her waiting.”

A final peck on the cheek and Dawn was out the door in a swirl of shiny walnut hair. Buffy watched her go and was left with an odd sort of matronly, spinsterly feeling. Dawn had urged her to date too, since they’d moved to Rome, and she had for a while, but her heart wasn’t in it. She hadn’t finished mourning; she wasn’t ready to move on. Spike had taken years to work his way into her heart, and it looked like he was taking his time in working his way back out. He’d left a hole inside her that other men just couldn’t fill. Not yet, anyway. Someday, maybe... but not yet.

Buffy sighed and headed into the living room, readying herself for a quiet evening of old movies. Before she sat down, however, there was a knock on the door.

“Honestly, Dawn,” she muttered, trudging back to the hallway, “you’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached.” She stopped halfway to the door and wondered, not for the first time, just when she’d started turning into her mother. She shook her head in amusement and reached for the doorknob.

“Did you leave your keys behind agai...”

The brown eyes staring down at her were the last ones she’d expected to see on her doorstep tonight--or, really, any night. The floor seemed to lurch a little under her feet; she gripped the door handle for support and stared at them, open-mouthed, her question already forgotten.

“...Angel.”

“Buffy.” Angel’s voice cracked with emotion, and he leaned against the doorframe, pale and exhausted. Grief was written so plainly across his features that she almost couldn’t bear to look at him. His gaze dropped downwards, as if he didn’t have the energy or the will to hold his eyes up to meet hers.

Additional speech eluded her. The air around him felt thick and heavy, infused with dread and guilt and sorrow, and Buffy suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Pain--there had been so much pain, so much loss, in the past few years. Mom. Tara. Anya. Spike. She’d brought Dawn to Rome to leave their grim past behind, to try for a fresh start. She’d thought the worst was over, that the time for tears had ended, but the look on Angel’s face clearly said that there was another blow to come. The hole inside her ached anew, and she wondered why she didn’t just collapse inwards from the hollowness.

Buffy drew a shaky breath, set her jaw, and steeled herself as best she could. "Come in, Angel", she said, then stepped back to let him enter.

~*~

  
Springtime in Rome should have been enough to lift anyone’s spirits: tree branches burst with fresh buds, and choruses of flowers filled the air with their scents; toddlers chased pigeons across sunlit piazzas under the watchful eyes of their mothers; and old men and students took breaks from their days over cups of colourful gelato.

Buffy sat on the patio of her favourite trattoria, forgetting to sip her long-since-cold latte and feeling woozy after a long night of many tears and little sleep. She stared unseeingly at clumps of chattering tourists, droplets welling from her eyes and slowly coursing damp trails down her cheeks.

Spike. Dead. Well, that was what she’d thought for the past year, wasn’t it? But this time he was _really_ dead. Not dead from wearing a magic amulet in battle--and she couldn’t help but kick herself over that one: she, more than anyone, knew that mystical deaths were different. Not only could they sometimes be reversed, but what looked like death wasn’t always. Why had she been so quick to assume that Spike was irretrievably gone? Why, when she’d finally realized how much she still wanted him by her side, hadn’t she even thought of suggesting to Willow that his fate might be worth looking into?

But it was too late now. This time, he was dead by a vampire’s natural enemy: fire. He’d been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been turned to ash in an alley by the breath of a dragon. Just a few more seconds--a few more feet in any direction--and he’d have been able to get out of the way. At least he’d mortally wounded the monster as it descended towards him. Angel owed him his life for that. Spike had gone down a hero. Again.

That was something, right? It had to be something. It had to be enough, because it was all she was ever going to get.

A fresh wave of tears blurred the picturesque scene in front of her. The conversation of the couple at the next table slowed, and they cast curious glances at her. Embarrassed, Buffy turned her back to them, buried her face in her hands, and wept quietly into the sodden sleeves of her sweater.

“There, there, dearie, are you all right?” A distinctly non-Italian accent cut into her thoughts, and a warm and gentle hand patted her lightly on the back. Buffy startled and raised her eyes to meet those of an elderly, white-haired woman who was looking down at her with concern. She groped for a napkin and blotted her face.

“Yes,” she choked. The woman tilted her head and gave her a disbelieving look. “I mean, no. I don’t know. I- I guess I will be, eventually, but it’s just...” She started shredding the wet napkin to give herself something to do with her hands. “I’ve had some bad news. It- it came as a bit of a shock.”

“Why don’t you let me get you a nice cup of tea?” The woman squeezed her shoulder, sank down into the chair next to her, and signalled a waiter. “I could use a rest,” she continued as she slipped off her shoes and wiggled her toes in the sun. “These old dogs aren’t what they used to be. Never get old, my love, never get old.” She patted Buffy’s hands, stilling their worrying movements. “Stay young and pretty as long as you can. And take care of your feet--wear sensible shoes. That’s sound advice from someone who’s been around the block more times than she’ll admit.”

Their tea arrived, and Buffy’s companion busied herself with pouring and offering milk and sugar. The hot sweet liquid was comforting; Buffy looked at the plump, lined face and managed a wan smile.

“I’m- I’m Buffy. It’s very nice of you to sit with me.”

“Buffy--what a pretty name. I’m Frances. Frances of Rome, the young ones call me.” Her eyes twinkled. “Though I’m not really from Rome at all. But you don’t need to hear about me. You’ve suffered a loss, a terrible loss. Why don’t you tell me about it? About him. It’ll help to ease your heart, dearie.”

Buffy gaped at her. “A- about him? How did you know there was a him?”

Frances gave her a knowing look. “I can always tell,” she said kindly. “You lost him recently, yes?”

Buffy’s eyes grew wide and glassy as she fought the urge to start crying again. “Yes. Well, no. I mean... well, I thought I’d lost him last year, but it turns out that I hadn’t. I thought he was, you know, dead, but he wasn’t, he was just... elsewhere.”

“But?”

“But I just learned all of this last night and that now he really _is_ dead, and... and... things could have been different, but I just didn’t know...”

Frances reached over and gave Buffy’s arm another reassuring squeeze. “I expect you’d do things differently if you had the chance to do it over?”

Buffy nodded and sniffled as tears started trickling down her face once more. “Of course, yes, of course I would! I wouldn’t push him away or wait so long to tell him how I feel. I’d make sure he knew he was wanted and l- lo- well, I’d just make sure he knew. I’d do it right this time. I would.” Her eyes closed with longing and she covered her face with her hands. “I just... I just...”

“Yes?” Frances leaned towards her, listening intently.

“I just wish Spike were here,” said Buffy’s muffled voice. She dropped her hands to the table and gave Frances a pleading look. “I wish he were here.”

Frances sat back in her chair and smiled with satisfaction. As Buffy raised the soggy napkin to wipe her eyes, she glanced at Frances and saw, with a shock, that her gentle, weathered face had taken on a strange and twisted appearance. Before she could react, however, the world tilted around her, the sky went black, and all she could hear was a harsh, deep voice that seemed to come from all directions at once.

“ _Wish granted._ ”


	2. Wish You Were Here

The second chapter of my entry for Spicklething's and Cindergal's [Welcome Back to the Hellmouth Ficathon](http://kellyhk.livejournal.com/147984.html). Written for Elsaf. Story requests will be given at the end of the last chapter.

Hugs and smooches to Flurblewig and Yourlibrarian for betaing. 

Title: Wish You Were Here  
Setting: Post- _Not Fade Away_  
Rating: PG  
Word count: 2251 (this part)  
Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. [He said so.](http://www.livejournal.com/users/desoto_hia873/80744.html)

~*~

 

The world stopped tilting, but the sky remained black. Also, it was raining. Buffy couldn’t see much of anything and blinked rapidly, brushing her wet hair out of her face and willing her morning-sun-in-Rome eyes to become dark-adjusted. Fast.

A moment later, she saw stars, but not because her eyes had caught up with her new situation: a fist had connected forcefully with her chin, and the blow had bounced her head off the brick wall behind her. Her spider-senses were tingling--there wasn’t much doubt what had punched her, and she was relieved to discover that she was standing in this new place with a stake in her hand. Acting on instinct, she ducked the next blow and whirled towards her opponent. The moon chose to peer through its cloud cover just as she raised her stake for the kill, and she caught a flash of white-blond hair. 

Very familiar white-blond hair. 

Her heart skipped a beat; maybe two. One in response to the elation of seeing Spike here, now, _alive_ , and another in horror at the realization that she was about to deliver a blow that would change all that. She had gained too much momentum to stop her weapon’s trajectory, but managed at the last second to wrench her arm a little to the side. She felt the stake slide in between his ribs, and Spike collapsed to the ground. He stared down at the wooden shaft protruding at an angle from his chest, its point just far enough towards centre that it had missed piercing his heart. 

“Spike!” Buffy dropped to her knees in front of him and put her hands on his not-ashy shoulders. She squeezed them tightly to reassure herself that they were going to stay that way. “Oh my God, Spike. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” 

Now that it was beating again, her heart was working overtime, and she swallowed to try to move it back down from her throat. The adrenaline rushing through her veins was making her dizzy, but even with that and the commingled feelings of shock, fright, and relief, bubbles of joy were swelling and rising within her. Spike. Here, now, somewhat damaged, but definitely not dead. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she settled for giving him a goofy grin.

Spike looked up at her, dazed, his mouth working soundlessly. He pulled his eyes away from hers and looked around in bewilderment. Buffy followed his gaze—it was night, it was drizzly, and they were in an alley… somewhere. She smelled stale beer and rotting garbage and old hamburger grease. The somewhere that they were was definitely not Rome. Not that it mattered—they could be in Timbuktu for all she cared. The important thing was that they were here together.

Spike suddenly seemed to come back to himself and scrabbled backwards away from her in a panic, stopping only when he ran into the wall on the other side of the alley. He reached up and yanked the stake out of his chest with a grunt of pain, then covered the wound with his other hand. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. 

“Who the hell are you?” His voice was raspy, and it clearly hurt him to talk. “And how do you know my name?”

Buffy blinked, uncertain. “Who am I? Spike, it’s me, Buffy--”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he was craning his neck, searching up and down the alley, and growing more frantic by the second. “What is this place? How’d you bring me here? And where’s Drusilla?” He turned his face back towards her, his eyebrows knitting together, and tried to get to his feet. “What have you done with her?” he shouted, fear and anger warring for dominance on his face. “Drusilla! Can you hear me, luv? Dru, I’m over here!” 

Spike’s boots slid on the damp-slick pavement as his weakened legs failed to hold him up, and he thumped back down onto the ground. “Dammit,” he yelled at Buffy, “ _where’s Dru?_ If you’ve hurt a single hair on her head, I swear I’ll tear out your entrails and make you watch while I feed them to you.”

Buffy tensed—could Drusilla be here too? It seemed unlikely—she’d only wished for Spike, not Spike and his loony ex-lover. Still, you never knew with vengeance demons. She tightened her hands into fists and peered through the falling rain, listening carefully. All she could hear was the patter of raindrops on pavement, and nothing moved in the shadows; they seemed to be alone.

Keeping one ear open in case Dru did decide to show up, Buffy returned her attention to Spike. She could understand his agitation if he’d been transported to wherever here was as suddenly as she had been, but why didn’t he know her? Why was he looking for Drusilla? Her swelling bubbles of happiness collapsed in upon themselves, leaving her with a fermenting sense of unease.

“Spike, please, calm down. And stop thrashing around—you’re making the bleeding worse.” Buffy moved towards him, wanting to pacify him and wondering what she could use as a bandage, then jumped back when he took a swipe at her with the hand holding the stake. “Spike! I’m not trying to hurt you—I’m trying to help!”

He glowered at her, belligerence his only defence now that she was out of stake range. “Oh right, a great bloody help you’ve been. First, you take me away from Dru when she’s been set on by that mob, then you nearly kill me by jamming a fencepost in my chest.” He lifted his hand to look at his injury and clamped it back down to stem the renewed flow of blood. He gave a wet cough, winced with pain, and spat a dark-coloured gob of phlegm onto the pavement. 

“I said I was sorry! I didn’t know it was you—you know I wouldn’t hurt you. At least, you’d know if you knew who I was.” She was babbling, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop. “Spike, why don’t you know me?” Buffy asked despairingly, knowing even as she said it that it was a stupid question. If he knew why he didn’t know her, then they wouldn’t be having this conversation. She felt like she was chasing her tail, even though she was standing still.

“Why don’t I know you? Let’s see…” He pretended to think. “Maybe it’s, uh… _because I’ve never met you_ , you stupid bint.”

“Never met me? Of course you’ve met me. Buffy—I’m Buffy! Your Buffy. You know: ‘I’m drowning in you, Summers.’ I’m all you think about, dream about. You love what I am, what I do, how I try. I’m the one. _Your_ one.” 

Spike looked at her with such incredulousness that she thought he was going to start laughing at her. In spite of the chill of the rain, she felt her cheeks go warm with embarrassment.

“Don’t look at me like that, those were _your_ words,” she said, irked. “I remember them. All of them. Every single one. And you’re staring at me like I’ve got two heads, like you never said them to me, like it wasn’t you--” She broke off. Her eyes focussed on the hand covering the hole in his chest. He was wearing black nail polish. 

Spike stiffened under her scrutiny and made another attempt to get to his feet. Buffy edged a little closer to him, pushed her wet hair out of her eyes, and squinted at his face. He was also wearing eyeliner. Spike-- _her_ Spike--hadn’t done either of those things in years. Sense wasn’t exactly being made yet, but she thought she might be getting a clue: there was more going on here than just being popped from one location to another.

Spike scowled at her approach and pushed her away. He overbalanced and slid to the pavement with a squelch, where he had to be content with sitting and weakly brandishing his stake at her. “Stop staring at me, I’m not a bloody zoo animal. And keep your distance, hear? Don’t know what kind of delusion you’ve got going on and don’t much care. Spent too much time nattering with you already. Dru needs me.” He turned his head and bellowed up the alley, “ _Drusilla!_ ”

“Spike.” Buffy drew herself up to her full height and spoke sternly, trying to sound commanding. “Spike! Stop shouting and listen to me. I’m not where I was a few minutes ago and you’re not either. I think our whens may have changed too. We’re going to need each other to figure this out, so stop fighting me.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed, and she could feel dislike and distrust rolling off his body in waves, but at least he was listening to her. “I don’t think Drusilla’s here. I’m not even sure where here is, but it’s not where either one of us is supposed to be. I’m not a witch and I didn’t do this. It was done _to_ me--it was done to _us_.”

Buffy crouched down before him—out of range of the stake—in a non-threatening pose, sighed, and felt the last of the elation she’d experienced upon seeing him again dribble away. The Spike in front of her wasn’t her Spike—he was who-knew-how-many years from being her Spike. Her Spike was still gone. But there wasn’t time for any more mourning now. She had to figure out which version of Spike this was and where they both were now if she wanted to do like Dorothy and go home again.

“What’s the last thing you remember before everything changed?”

“Why should I tell you that?” Spike coughed and spat again in the direction of her boots and slumped lower against his wall. She could see blood mixed in with the gooey mass, and he was noticeably paler than he had been a few minutes ago. She didn’t think blood loss could actually kill a vampire, but it was certainly taking its toll. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

Buffy rubbed her hand over her eyes. He really had been this annoying back in the day. She’d kind of forgotten that lately. “Because you want to get back to Drusilla,” she explained patiently. “And I want to go home too. And our best chance of getting either of those things is if we cooperate with each other. Comprende?”

She took his silence as consent. “OK, I’ll go first. I was in Rome before I wound up in this alley. You were…?”

Spike shifted and grimaced with the effort, then let his head fall back against the wall behind him and regarded her warily. “In Prague. With Drusilla.”

“And you’re sure this place isn’t Prague?”

“Of course it’s not Prague. Are you daft? For one thing, Drusilla’s gone. The entire sodding mob we were fighting our way out of is gone. And--” he kicked a cardboard container that had spilled out of one of the nearby overflowing trash cans, “they don’t have Doublemeat burgers in Prague.” He turned his head away and muttered in a voice just loud enough that she was sure he knew she’d hear, “Bloody Americans.”

Buffy picked up the container and stared at it. Doublemeat Palace. Was it possible? Could she be…? She jumped to her feet and ran to the end of the alley. It opened up onto Main Street, and yes, there was the Sun Cinema, and across the way, the Espresso Pump. Her eyes widened at the sight of familiar landmarks she’d long since thought crushed and buried at the bottom of a dusty crater, and for the second time in less than twelve hours, she found it difficult to breathe. 

Sunnydale. She was in Sunnydale. Even stranger than that, there was still a Sunnydale to be in. It looked the way she remembered. Well, not exactly the same. The Sun’s lights were blacked out, and the torn posters indicated that there hadn’t been any movies shown in a while. Chelsea’s bookstore had been boarded up. There was more litter on the streets than there used to be. 

This was the last place she’d expected to find herself. She wasn’t even sure how it was possible. But at least she knew where she was, although she still wasn’t too clear on the when. Buffy shook her head to try and untangle her thoughts. Spike—the Spike in the alley, that is—had been yanked out of Prague and seemed to have jumped forwards from his Drusilla-loving, black-nail-polish days, while she had been taken from Rome in 2004. Sunnydale still looked like home, so they couldn’t be too far back in the past, and it definitely wasn’t demolished under a pile of rubble, so that suggested that they weren’t in the present or future. 

Unless…

The last words she’d heard before the world had gone black echoed in her head: _Wish granted_. Vengeance demons were powerful creatures, though she’d never actually asked Anya to describe all the things they could do. Were she and Spike in one of those alternate universes that Anya had mentioned visiting when she was still a demon? Were there shrimp in this world? It was a little hard to tell from where she was standing, but she thought she knew where to go to find out.

She just had to persuade the surly vampire to go with her.


	3. Chapter 3

The third chapter of my entry for Spicklething's and Cindergal's [Welcome Back to the Hellmouth Ficathon](http://kellyhk.livejournal.com/147984.html). Written for Elsaf. Story requests will be given at the end of the last chapter.

Hugs and smooches to Flurblewig and Yourlibrarian for betaing. 

Title: Wish You Were Here  
Setting: Post- _Not Fade Away_  
Rating: PG  
Word count: 2368 (this part)  
Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. [He said so.](http://www.livejournal.com/users/desoto_hia873/80744.html)

~*~

Spike wasn’t really in any condition to resist her suggestion that he come with. Of course, this being the Spike of yesteryear, that didn’t stop him from trying. Buffy crouched in front of him with her elbows resting on her knees, leaned her forehead against her steepled fingers, and summoned up her remaining reserves of patience.

“Spike,” she said, measuring out each word calmly and reasonably, “I can’t just leave you here. I know where here is now, but technically it shouldn’t really even _be_ at all. We may need each other to find out what’s going on and our way back to the wheres we were, and we’re not going to get anywhere sitting here in this alley.” She peered over her hands to gauge his reaction; somehow, he was managing to look obstinate and semi-comatose at the same time. 

“Besides,” she added, “the sun will eventually come up—it pretty much always does in _Sunny_ dale—and you’re not going anywhere on your own for a while. So, unless you want to spend your day under a cardboard box or in the nearest dumpster, your best bet is to come with me.” She reached her hand out to him in what she hoped was an inviting gesture, but he batted it away with his stake.

“You keep your distance, hear?” Spike’s admonition was made somewhat less intimidating given that he was starting to slur his words and was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. “Don’ know what you’re up to an’ don’ really care to find out... You g’your way an’ I’ll—”

“Be a big pile of dust by morning. For heaven’s sake, Spike!” Buffy leapt to her feet, darted towards him, wrenched the stake out of his hand, and threw it down the alley. “Look Ma, no weapons!” She held her empty palms up for him to see. “Coming in peace here. Can you get that through your thick head, please?”

Spike blinked slowly at his empty hand, then let it drop by his side and closed his eyes. Buffy interpreted this as a sign of acceptance—or more likely resignation, but that would do, too—moved beside him, and slung his arm over her shoulder. Bracing herself against the alley wall, she wrapped her free arm around his waist and hauled him to his feet. Spike grimaced and stifled a groan, clutched at the wound in his chest, and wobbled unsteadily beside her. 

“Okay, lean on me and take it slowly. We’ve only got a few blocks to go. And don’t think for a minute about getting bitey with me, mister. I know you need blood, but you’re not getting any of mine.”

They shuffled towards Main Street at the pace of an arthritic tortoise and turned right towards Revello Drive. The loss of blood had made Spike weak enough that he was barely able to stay on his feet, even with her assistance. If he passed out completely—and Buffy suspected this still might be a possibility—she’d have to sling him over her shoulder and haul him along that way. At least there weren’t any people on the streets to ask awkward questions about the pale man with the gaping chest wound and blood-drenched clothing. In fact, the downtown core was unusually quiet. There was no way to tell what time it was, other than night, and a few businesses still had their post-closing-time lights on, but there were no stragglers from bars, no teenagers out for a good time, no bums sleeping it off in quiet corners… no anybody at all, really. The silence was kind of giving her the wiggins.

Two blocks away from the turn towards home, Buffy leaned Spike against a wall so that they could both take a breather. He wasn’t particularly big as vampires went, but she’d been supporting most of his weight, and she wasn’t in the same fighting shape that she’d once been. Her hands on her hips, she stretched her shoulder and neck muscles, watched the puffs of her breaths condensing into fog in the cool night air, and vowed to start working out more once she got home. 

Spike coughed and spat another blood-coloured gob of phlegm to the pavement. The movement cost him more energy than he had to spare, and he began to slide down the wall. Moisture beaded on his forehead; it might have been from the rain, which had tapered off to little more than a drizzle, but his grey pallor and the pain he was trying and failing to conceal suggested that at least some of it was sweat. She’d seen him like this before—after Glory had beaten him nearly senseless, after the First had kidnapped him—and for a moment she wanted nothing more than to take him into her arms and comfort him. But then a sudden vision of another occasion when he’d been battered and bloody and left in an alley flashed into her mind. Her cheeks burned with the memory, and she settled for catching him as he slipped and lowering him gently to the ground. 

“Rest for a minute, then we’ll go on.” She turned away from him, avoiding eye contact. How many times had she wished that night had never happened? How many times had she tried to forget? Tried to explain it away? She’d been different then. The circumstances had definitely been of the extenuating kind. She’d been ill—depressed, newly torn out of heaven, not herself. She closed her eyes and tried to push the scene out of her mind. Again.

Buffy could feel Spike’s gaze on her back and gave herself a mental shake. This Spike wasn’t her Spike. This Spike had no memory of that incident. He didn’t know, couldn’t know. And anyway, this wasn’t the time for self-recriminations. Doubting herself made her weak, regrets made her weak, and they couldn’t afford that right now. She had to be—

“Strong, aren’t you?”

Buffy froze, then turned slowly. “What?”

“Strong. For such a bitty thing as yourself. Sank that stake clean into me, you did. Supported me all this way, and you’re scarcely winded. You weigh, what? Seven stone, soaking wet? How’s that possible?”

Of course. He also didn’t know, couldn’t know, that she was a slayer. Somehow, this didn’t seem like the best time to tell him. Even in his current state, he might want to try to up his count to three. She shrugged, aiming for nonchalance.

“I stay in shape. That’s all.”

Spike looked at her appraisingly, one eyebrow cocked slightly. Not wanting to answer more questions, Buffy bent towards him to help him up. “C’mon—let’s get going.”

They resumed their shuffling gait and turned onto Revello Drive. Buffy squinted down the street and, yes, there it was: home. The home she’d thought she’d never see again. Though the neighbouring houses were dark, the porch light at 1630 was on, shining as if waiting in welcome. She couldn’t suppress a grin and tried to move Spike along a little faster. She wasn’t intending to stay in this version of Sunnydale any longer than necessary, but it would be good to see the old place one more time.

As they neared the driveway, Spike stiffened, suddenly alert.

“Spike? Are you all right? What’s the matt—”

Then she heard it too: a throaty growl coming from just up ahead. A moment later, a creature with mottled skin, sunken, blackened eyes, and rows of pointed yellow fangs emerged with a snarl from behind Mrs. Fitzgibbon's overgrown peony bush. It was clothed—if you could call it that—in strips of rotting leather, and its unnaturally long fingers ended in curved, pointed claws. Buffy felt her face go pale; she still saw Turok Han in nightmares, but she’d really, really hoped never to see one in real life again.

Spike stumbled wide-eyed and backwards out of her grip. Right, the Turok Han were the vampires that even vampires feared. Buffy pushed him into Mrs. Fitzgibbon's geranium bed and assumed a fighting stance, wishing that she was in better shape, wishing she had more than a gravely wounded vampire for backup, and wishing that she hadn’t thrown that stake away. 

She aimed a kick at the übervamp’s chest. It caught her leg, twisted it, and she crashed down onto the sidewalk. The jarring impact made her bite her tongue; she tasted blood and spat on the pavement. 

Why was there never a damn vengeance demon around to grant wishes when you really needed one?

Buffy pushed herself up, but not fast enough; the übervamp caught her in the stomach with its foot and sent her flying halfway across the lawn and into the broad trunk of the tree under which, in a different Sunnydale, Spike used to lurk. The double blow knocked the wind out of her, and she fell into a crumpled heap, gasping for air. 

Catching her breath, she rose to her feet, ran towards the Turok Han, and unleashed a flurry of punches to its face and shoulders. It was like hitting concrete, and she had a feeling that that funny snapping noise was one of her fingers breaking. Unfazed, the übervamp knocked her back twenty feet with a single swipe of its arm and advanced on her again.

Buffy looked around for something she could use as a weapon. The pickings were way too slim for comfort: a wicker chair on the porch and a couple of potted begonias by the railings. The Turok Han continued its lurching gait towards her. Buffy ran up the steps of the porch, grabbed the post to her right, swung around it, and planted both feet into its chest. It stumbled backwards, and she used the opportunity to pick up a few of the flowerpots and hurl them at its head.

She was getting desperate. Spike was still ensconced in the geraniums; evading the Turok Han and carrying him to the door was Mission Totally Impossible. The wicker chair was too light to provide much in the way of staking material, and Turok Han needed more than that to dust them anyway. They’d been tough enough to fight when she was trained and ready, and a year’s sabbatical in sunny Rome had made her soft. 

The übervamp brushed the dirt out of his eyes and lumbered towards her again. Buffy jumped off the porch and circled around it, ducking blows and avoiding kicks while trying to come up with a plan. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a light flick on in the living room. Someone must have heard the noise of the fight. Maybe reinforcements were on the way, although she really had no idea who was in the house. It was probably too much to hope that Faith had dropped by for a visit.

The übervamp’s fist connected solidly with her temple, and she fell to the ground, seeing spots and hearing a ringing in her ears. She found her limbs suddenly uncooperative and could do little more than scrabble backwards like an uncoordinated crab. The Turok Han gave her a kick to her side that knocked the wind out of her again. Buffy wheezed, tried to coax her aching ribs to pull air into her oxygen-starved lungs, shook her head in an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the spots and the ringing, and willed her unresponsive arms and legs to do something, _anything_. 

Another kick to the head and the world began to go grey. Was this it? Was this how she was going to go out, in a shouldn’t-even-exist Sunnydale at the feet of a Turok Han? She didn’t even have a Watcher to record her death. Seven years of defeating the forces of evil, and her final battle was going to wind up as a question-mark footnote in the annals of the Council—how unfair was that?

Another kick, and there were no more questions to be asked.

~*~

“Buffy.” Consciousness trickled back, and she became aware of someone shaking her gently. “Buffy. Can you hear me?”

So, she wasn’t dead after all. She knew this because dead didn’t hurt this much. Pain meant she was alive, and eventually she’d see the good in that. Right now, though, her entire world was composed of ow. She tried to tell her rescuer that she was still among the living, but all that came out was a groan.

“Get Mr. Giles,” ordered the voice of her new hero; footsteps thudded up the wooden porch stairs in response. Buffy made a Herculean effort to open her eyes—who put the twenty-pound weights on them, anyway?—and found herself looking straight into the porch light. Its brightness stabbed right through to her throbbing temple and caused even more ow. She turned her head and raised a shaking and swollen hand to block the glare, then looked for the identity of her benefactor. 

The face above her was framed in dark brown ringlets, and even darker brown eyes gazed down at her in warm concern. Her expression was softer than any Buffy remembered seeing her wear before, and she exuded a feeling of compassion in addition to her customary tempered-steel strength.

“Ken—?”

Buffy choked, though she wasn’t sure if it was from surprise or the shower of dust falling from Kendra’s shoulders. Kendra lifted her upright and thumped her gently on the back until she’d finished coughing. 

“Kendra, you’re… you’re _alive_ ,” Buffy said, astonished, when she was able to breathe again.

“Of course I am alive,” Kendra responded matter-of-factly. “ _I_ don’t go out alone at night wit’out appropriate weapons.” She squeezed Buffy’s arm and gave her a small smile. “I t’ink you will be all right as well.” 

Kendra reached behind her. “In the future, however, you would be wise not to forget to take this—” she pushed a red and silver scythe onto Buffy’s lap “—wit’ you if you want to stay that way. Now, let me help you inside before any more of the Turok Han come. You have done all that you can tonight. Also, the others will want to know that you are okay.”

~*~

A/N: Not knowing the name of Buffy's next-door neighbour, I borrowed Mrs. Fitzgibbons from Rahirah's Barbverse fic. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. :-) 


	4. Chapter 4

The fourth chapter of my entry for Spicklething's and Cindergal's [Welcome Back to the Hellmouth Ficathon](http://kellyhk.livejournal.com/147984.html). Written for Elsaf. Story requests will be given at the end of the last chapter.

Hugs and smooches to Flurblewig and Yourlibrarian for amazingly fast and thorough betaing. 

Feedback is love!

 

Title: Wish You Were Here  
Setting: Post- _Not Fade Away_  
Rating: PG  
Word count: 4579 (this part)  
Disclaimer: Joss likes fanfic. [He said so.](http://www.livejournal.com/users/desoto_hia873/80744.html)

~*~

Kendra helped Buffy to her feet. Reacquainting herself with verticalness made her world go tilty again, and she had to hang on to Kendra’s shoulder for a minute until the dizzy spell passed. She wasn’t quite sure which was causing more disorientation at the moment: the kicks to the head from the übervamp or the brain-hurty way that different strands from her past had suddenly been woven together in the present in new and exciting patterns. Unsouled Spike, Turok Han, Kendra, and her scythe were not all supposed to be in the front yard of a house in a town that, in her mind, currently resided at the bottom of a crater.

She had to keep resisting the urge to stare at Kendra in a googly-eyed, open-mouthed-goldfish kind of way. To distract herself from going the fish route, she fingered the lump on her temple—it throbbed painfully with every heartbeat and would probably be several interesting shades of bruise by tomorrow. 

“Can you walk?” Kendra asked. Buffy answered with a weak nod, listing slightly to one side from the weight of the scythe in her hand. Kendra scanned the darkness around them. “Good. Then we should go into the house and see to your wounds. I can feel another vampire nearby—it might be a Turok Han, and I t’ink that you are in no condition to fight.”

Buffy held out an arm to stop her. “What you’re feeling—that’s not a vamp… well, it is, but… I mean…” 

She stopped, at a loss for words. God, how was she going to explain to the by-the-handbook slayer that they needed to take in and protect a soulless vampire who had already murdered two of their kind? And whose batty girlfriend had—although apparently not in this world—killed Kendra herself? At least she probably wouldn’t know about that part. Buffy drew a shaky breath and decided just to forge straight ahead.

“There’s… someone over in Mrs. Fitzgibbons’ flowerbed. It’s Spike, and he’s injured, and we can’t leave him out here.” Buffy waited for a sign of recognition from Kendra—they had, after all, fought him together when Spike had called the Order of Taraka down on her. But there was none. Instead, Kendra’s face took on an expression of concern, and after making sure Buffy could stand on her own, she began striding over in the direction indicated.

“Wait!” Buffy called. It seemed unlikely, but maybe Kendra had forgotten about Spike. Or maybe she thought this was the souled version, although how she would know about that, Buffy couldn’t imagine. However, a lot of unimaginable things had happened in the past 24 hours; why should they stop now? Kendra paused in mid-step and looked back at her. “You need to know something: he’s a vampire. Of the unsouled variety.” 

Kendra’s expression switched to one of disdain, and she drew a stake from the pocket of her jacket. “All vampires are wit’out souls. He should be dusted. Immediately.”

“No! No, you can’t kill him. Look, I can’t explain everything right now. It’s… complicated. Just believe me—we need him. _I_ need him.”

Kendra’s eyebrows rose, and she alternated bewildered glances between Buffy and the heap of leather in the geraniums.

“When we get inside, I’ll tell you everything. At least, everything I know, which at the moment isn’t so much.” Kendra looked as if she was starting to doubt Buffy’s sanity. “Please, Kendra, trust me. We have to take Spike with us. He’s badly hurt, so he’s no danger to anyone right now.” 

Kendra eyed the immobile form in the flowerbed for a few more seconds, then seemed to make up her mind. “I don’t understand. Vampires are evil—we bot’ know this. But if you say that this one is important, then I will accept your word. I will keep a close eye on him, however. If he t’reatens _anyone_ …”

“He won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

Kendra nodded, then picked her way through the geraniums to get to Spike. With a look of distaste, she rolled him over, and her eyebrows rose again when she saw the wound in his chest. “You have already tried to stake him?”

“No! Well, yes. Sort of. It was an accident. I’m sorry, I know I’m not doing much in the way of sense-making right now—let’s just get him inside, okay?”

Kendra bent over Spike and, carefully, so that she wouldn’t get blood on her pyjamas, heaved him up into a sitting position. Spike’s head lolled to one side and he made no sound—he seemed to be barely conscious, if at all. Kendra slung one of his arms over her shoulder, pulled him to his feet, and began dragging him towards the house. Buffy moved to help her, but Kendra shook her head. “It is all right. I can manage and you are still weak. Go ahead to the door and invite him in if this is what you want to do.”

Right. Spike didn’t have an invitation to Casa Summers in this world. Buffy limped up the porch steps, opened the front door, and turned towards the pair behind her. “Come in, Spike.” She turned around again and nearly walked into a worried-looking, long-haired girl in a housecoat.

“…Tara!” Buffy’s jaw dropped and she was back to doing the goldfish thing. If she kept this up, her eyes were going to fall right out of her head.

“Buffy.” Tara didn’t seem to notice Buffy’s astonished expression; her eyes were focussed on Kendra and Spike’s shuffling journey across the lawn. With an effort, she turned her attention back to Buffy, held out a blanket, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Are you all right? Thank goodness Kendra’s a light sleeper—she heard the fight. Oh, that’s a nasty bump on your head. Come, sit down, and let me look at it…” A crease formed between her eyebrows as she looked over Buffy’s shoulder again. “Who’s Kendra with?”

“It’s Spike. He’s been hurt.” Buffy pulled Tara into a hug. This world, whatever it was, didn’t seem like such a bad place if it was giving her the chance to see the people that she’d lost one more time. Wait– was it possible… would she get to see… Buffy looked over Tara’s shoulder, but there was no one standing within sight of the doorway. “Tara?” Buffy asked, stepping back from her and feeling her heart rate speed up. “Is Mom here?”

Tara looked at her, nonplussed. “J-Joyce? No, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

Buffy’s heart sank. This wasn’t the world of Too Good To Be True, then. “I don’t know. No reason. Lumpy head, scrambled brains, you know.” She wrapped her arms around Tara again to hide her disappointment. “Oh my God, Tara, it’s so good to see you again.”

“It’s, uh… good to see you, too, Buffy.” Tara patted her on the back, distracted by Kendra and Spike’s ascent up the porch steps. “Um, who’s Spike?”

Buffy pulled away and saw that Tara looked genuinely bewildered. Why did no one around here know who Spike was? 

“Spike. He’s… well, he’s a vampire.” Tara blanched. “It’s all right—he’s a good vampire,” Buffy said in a rush to reassure her. “Well, no, actually, he’s not. Not yet, anyway. But he will be! I’m pretty sure about that.” She suppressed a groan of frustration. “Look, I know this is confusing, and I promise I’ll try to explain. Just know for now that he’s an unconscious vampire, so he can’t hurt anyone. Is that old cot still in the basement?”

“Uh-huh.” Tara nodded and stepped back to give Kendra room to drag Spike through the doorway. 

“Good, we’ll take him down there. Bring some bandages. And rope. I guess you guys don’t have any blood in the fridge, huh?” 

Tara blinked. “B-blood?” 

“Never mind. I’ll get some tomorrow. The bandages will have to do for now. Once I get him settled down there, we’ll all talk, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

Tara watched Kendra go by with Spike’s limp form. “Okay,” she said faintly. “I’ll g-get you the first aid kit and then go see if Mr. Giles needs any help.”

~*~

Half an hour later, Spike’s wound had been cleaned and dressed, and he lay on his back on the cot, his wrists and ankles bound tightly together and to the steel frame. He’d moaned once or twice when Buffy had been disinfecting his injury and when Kendra had been trussing him up like a chicken, but showed no other signs of life.

Buffy knelt by the cot, Kendra standing sentry behind her, and resisted the urge to run her fingers through his hair. He was so pale—he needed blood, but there wouldn’t be any to give to him until the butcher shop opened in the morning. Even though he wasn’t her Spike, you wouldn’t know it by looking at him, particularly now that he’d passed out and stopped arguing with her. The man he would become was in there, somewhere, however deeply buried, and it was hard seeing him hurt. 

Buffy picked up the blanket Tara had draped around her shoulders and spread it over him, tucking the sides in gently while Kendra exhaled not-so-quiet huffs of disapproval. There wasn’t anything more she could do for him now, and it was probably in Spike’s best interest to get Kendra as far away from him as possible. She scooped a couple of aspirin from the first aid kit for her aching head—figuring out the what that would get them both back home was going to require some brain power, and it would help if hers wasn’t throbbing.

Buffy climbed the stairs behind Kendra, locked the basement door, paused in the kitchen long enough to pour herself a glass of water, and then headed into the living room. She glanced around to see who was in the room and stumbled from surprise as she went through the doorway.

“Oh, God, Tara—I’m sorry.” Half of Buffy’s glass of water had spilled into the lap of Tara’s dressing gown, and she jumped up from where she had been sitting next to Kendra on the sofa, brushing herself off.

“It’s fine—don’t worry about it.” 

Buffy scarcely heard her; she was too busy staring at Giles. He was sitting in a wheelchair.

The frail outline of his legs under the blanket draped over them told her that the wheelchair wasn’t a recent development. Whatever injury he’d received that had left him like this was evidently serious enough to have permanently disabled him. 

Giles was talking quietly with a sleepy-looking Dawn, who was crouched down beside him. Hearing the water glass commotion, he turned his head and looked at Buffy. She had to stifle a gasp: the left side of his face was disfigured, the skin on his cheek stretched tight with shiny pink scar tissue. Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes, and she busied herself with drinking water and swallowing aspirin so that no one would notice. She sat down in an empty chair.

“Buffy. Is, er, everything all right in the basement?” Giles’s words were slightly slurred, probably from the pull of the scar tissue.

“Yes.” Buffy’s voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes, everything’s fine. Spike’s still unconscious—he’ll probably stay that way until we get some blood into him. But just in case he wakes up, we tied him to the cot and locked the basement door. He’s no danger to anyone.”

“Spike, yes, Tara said that was what you called him.” Giles appeared to be trying to find a tactful way to ask what they all must have been wondering. “Er, Buffy, why exactly have you brought a vampire into the house? And why have you assigned yourself to him as nursemaid?”

Buffy sighed and sat down in the armchair. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Is everyone here? I mean, everyone who’s in the house?”

“Yes,” Giles replied, glancing around. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure who to expect. This hasn’t exactly been a day… um, night where being expectful has worked out very well.”

Off everyone’s confused looks, Buffy pushed on. “Okay, what I’m about to say isn’t going to make any sense to you. It barely makes sense to me. But, well… I’m not your Buffy.”

Dawn’s expression changed from sleepy to puzzled. Tara and Kendra gave each other a quick glance. 

“Not our Buffy?” Giles frowned as he surveyed her appearance. “You certainly look like our Buffy and you’re wearing her clothes. Whatever do you mean?”

“I’m… a different Buffy. I’m Rome-Buffy, parallel universe–Buffy, or maybe time travel–Buffy. I haven’t been Sunnydale-Buffy for over a year. I know more or less how I got here, or at least _why_ I got here, but I’m not exactly clear on when this is. Or why it is at all.”

Kendra gave Buffy a dubious look, then turned to Tara again and tapped her temple. Tara didn’t seem to notice, however; she was staring at Buffy and seemed to be concentrating very hard.

Buffy frowned at the implication of Kendra’s gesture. “This has nothing to do with getting kicked in the head! My head’s fine! Well, it hurts, and it’s kind of lumpy on one side, but everything inside it is still working.” 

“You have to admit, Buffy,” Dawn said tentatively, “what you’re saying sounds a little… well, crazy.”

Buffy rubbed her forehead. “Let me try again. This morning I woke up in Rome—that’s in Italy. Do you have Italy in this world?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “We _know_ where Rome is, Buffy.”

“Right. Note to self: this world has Italians. It’s kind of hard to tell what to take as a given right now. Angel came to see me in Rome last night, which: Surprise #1. He told me that he and his team tried to take down the Circle of the Black Thorn in Los Angeles, and that Spike had died in the battle. I was upset. Spike’s… well, in my world, Spike is different than he is here. He’s one of the good guys, like Angel. He’s still a vampire, but he’s got a soul. Anyway, I was upset, and I wound up crying into my latte at a trattoria this morning, and I accidentally made a wish.”

None of this explanation seemed to have cleared anything up for anyone—the fact that Giles was vigorously cleaning his glasses probably meant that the general level of confusion had gone up by several notches instead of down. Buffy sighed again. “You know, a wish. Vengeance demons and all that? What Anya used to be?”

Dawn glanced at Giles and seemed relieved that he didn’t understand Buffy any more than she did. “Anya? Buffy, who’s Anya?”

So, there was no Anya in this world either. Geez, it was hard to tell a story when you didn’t know who the players were. Buffy put her glass on the floor, rested her elbows on her knees, and put her face in her hands. 

“Buffy, I think perhaps it would be wise if you got some sleep—your fight with the Turok Han seems to have left you–”

Buffy held out one hand, cutting Giles off. “No, Giles, I’m fine. I’m not delusional; I’m just trying to figure out a way to explain things to you.”

“I don’t doubt that you’re making sense to yourself, Buffy, but Angel’s been dead for six years, we’ve never heard of this Anya of whom you speak, and to the best of my knowledge, you’ve never even been to Rome. A blow to the head such as the one you’ve sustained can–”

“Giles, I’m _fine_. Really, I am.” Buffy dropped her hands and sat upright in her chair again. “Okay, starting point. There are two things you need to understand: I’m not your Buffy, and vengeance demons are demons who grant wishes. Look up vengeance demons in your books, Giles—you might find one called Anyanka.”

“Very well.” Giles seemed to have decided to humour her for the time being. “We can easily verify the existence of vengeance demons and possibly even this Anyanka. Why don’t we move into the dining room?” 

Dawn pulled herself to her feet and stationed herself behind Giles’s chair as he unlocked the brakes. Kendra and Tara rose from the sofa and headed into the dining room, flicking lights on as they went. Buffy followed them, pausing briefly at the base of the stairs when she noticed the stairlift that had been installed, apparently to give Giles access to the second floor.

The dining room had been converted into a combination eating and working space. Tall bookcases that looked like they’d been hastily built lined one wall, their shelves filled with Giles’s collection of research materials. Giles selected several leather-bound volumes from the lower shelves and pointed out a few more near the ceiling that Dawn retrieved for him, then manoeuvred himself so that his wheelchair was positioned at the foot of the table.

As the others settled into chairs, Giles spoke again. “You must realize, Buffy, how very extraordinary it is to hear you say that you’re not, well, you.”

“I know, but you have to believe me. I’m trying to think of a way to prove it to you, but–“

“I think she _is_ telling the truth,” Tara’s gentle voice broke in. Everyone turned to stare at her. The crease had reappeared between her eyebrows, and she was still focussing intently on areas around Buffy’s head and shoulders. 

“Tara…? What do you see?” Kendra’s gaze flicked back and forth between Buffy and Tara.

“She’s… it’s her aura. It’s… different. Fragmented. It has… ripples, like it’s caught between two states. Parts of it look like it always has, but then the other comes forward and it’s… different. It’s been imprinted with different memories, different emotions.” Tara blinked and came out of her reverie, then reached for Kendra’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay, Dawnie,” she said, smiling reassuringly at Dawn’s worried expression. “Buffy’s fine—she’s still Buffy, she’s not a demon or anything. But something about her has definitely changed.”

Her aura—Tara had seen the change in it when Faith had switched bodies with her four years ago and had convinced everyone that that equally unbelievable story was true. Thank God for auras. And for Taras. Buffy had a strong urge to run around the table and envelop Tara in another bear hug, but instead chose the more conservative and less drama-queen response of giving her a grateful smile.

Kendra nodded decisively. “If that is what you see, then that is what is.” She returned her attention to Buffy. “You were still acting… normally earlier this evening, so somet’ing has changed within the past few hours. Since you went out to patrol, perhaps?”

“Probably, yeah,” Buffy agreed. “When the wish kicked in, I went from Rome to the alley next to the Sun Cinema downtown.”

“Ah—here it is!” Giles had been paging through one of his texts. “I've found her. Anyanka, the vengeance demon you mentioned. It says here that she’s sort of a Patron Saint of Scorned Women and that she grants wishes.” He looked up at Buffy. “Is that what happened? Anyanka granted you a wish?”

“No, it wasn’t Anya… um, Anyanka. This was a different vengeance demon—she was older. I mean, she looked older than Anyanka. She said her name was Frances—Frances of Rome. And I think she must be patron saintly about something else, because I haven’t been scorned lately.” 

Giles began flipping pages again. “Tell us everything you can remember about what happened prior to and after the wish, or that you think might be relevant.”

“Okay. Like I said, Angel came to Rome last night and told me that Spike had died. I was upset, and this morning this sweet old lady sat down at my table where I was drinking coffee and asked me what was wrong. So I told her, and I accidentally made a wish. I should have known better—wish is a four-letter word, because you never know when a vengeance demon might be listening in, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. And then her face went all veiny, like Anya’s did when she went back to being a vengeance demon, and she said, ‘Wish granted,’ and then suddenly I wasn’t in Rome anymore. I was here in Sunnydale, and it was night, and Spike was attacking me.”

“But I thought you said Spike was dead?” Dawn was frowning as she scribbled furiously, taking notes.

“I did, and he is—in my world. But this isn’t my world. Everything’s different here. In my world…” Buffy paused, uncomfortable. “Well, Sunnydale doesn’t exist in my world anymore,” she said in a quiet voice, looking down at her hands. “A little over a year ago, there was a battle—a big one, the biggest—against the First Evil and its army of Turok Han. We won—Willow cast a spell that turned all Potential Slayers into Slayers, and Spike wore an amulet that burned up the Turok Han—and we won. We closed the Hellmouth, and the earth around it gave way, and Sunnydale fell into a crater.”

No one spoke. Buffy looked up to see them all staring at her. 

Kendra was the first to find her voice. “We also fought the First Evil last year. It was as you say, except that there was no amulet and no Spike. Willow and Tara cast the spell together and it had great effect–” Kendra paused and looked at Tara with a mixture of affection and admiration before continuing “–but it was not enough. The First was weakened, but it was not defeated.”

Kendra fell silent, and Giles picked up the narrative. “The Sunnydale Hellmouth remains open, and Turok Han continue to emerge from it. We live in a world under siege, and our losses have been great. With the help of the few Watchers who survived the destruction of the Council’s headquarters, we’ve located and are training some of the new Slayers. Several are here in Sunnydale with us to fight the Turok Han at their source while we try to find another way to defeat the First. I regret to say that we have not made great progress in this. The First is regaining power, and we are no closer to finding a solution than we were a year ago.”

Buffy played with a loose thread on the tablecloth and considered what she’d heard. Things were different here, but they’d fought at least one of the same battles as she had, only with a very different outcome. With no Spike and no amulet—of course they wouldn’t have won. She still didn’t understand all of the differences between this world and her own, but at least some aspects of this one weren’t as random as they had originally seemed. Even the time frames were similar…

“What’s the date here?”

Dawn checked her watch. “It’s May 31. By just a few hours—it’s four o’clock in the morning. Did you want the year too? It’s 2004. What date is it where you came from?”

“The same,” Buffy replied faintly. That meant she wasn’t time travel–Buffy. Frances’s wish had sent her to a different Sunnydale than the one she knew; it wasn’t a world without shrimp, but a Sunnydale without Spike. If Spike—and, by association, Drusilla—never came to this Sunnydale, that would explain Kendra’s aliveness: when they’d joined forces to defeat Angelus and Acathla, Drusilla hadn’t been here to kill her. But why would a vengeance demon have sent her to a world without Spike when Spike was what she’d wished for? Except…

“This world does have Spike. At least, it does now,” Buffy said to no one in particular.

“What?” Dawn looked perplexed again.

“In my Sunnydale, we won the battle against the First because Spike wore a magic amulet. But Spike never came to your Sunnydale—not until tonight, anyway. And the Spike that’s here now seems to be pre-my-Sunnydale Spike—he doesn’t know me, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have his soul, and… oh! He said he was taken from Prague by my wish. He was there with Drusilla. They were in some kind of fight. Giles, look Spike up in your books and see if he existed in this world in the past. We found him in your books in my Sunnydale just after he first arrived.”

Dawn was already on her feet and reaching for another text. “Look for a vampire called William the Bloody.” Buffy watched Giles flip through the book Dawn had handed to him and racked her brains for more of Spike’s pre-Sunnydale history. “He’s about 120 years old, and he’s British. He used to travel with Angelus and Darla before Angel got his soul. Drusilla was–”

“–his consort.” Giles finished for her. “Yes, here they are. As you said, Spike was also known as 'William the Bloody'. He earned his nickname by torturing his victims with railroad spikes.” He grimaced. “Charming. And… oh. Oh my.” He looked up at Buffy and Kendra. “Spike fought two Slayers in the last century, and... he killed them both.”

Tara paled, while Kendra leapt to her feet, flushed with anger. She glared at Buffy, her eyes flashing. “You have brought a slayer of Slayers into this house? What were you thinking? What was _I_ thinking that I allowed you to do this?” 

“Kendra, please, you don’t know the whole story yet. And you saw the state that he’s in—he’s no threat to anyone right now.”

Kendra bristled, calming only slightly when Tara rose and put her hands on her shoulders. “He must not be given even the smallest opportunity to hurt anyone. He must be guarded at all times.”

Giles nodded. “That would be a prudent course of action.”

“Okay, that’s reasonable,” Buffy said, anxious to placate Kendra and prevent a premature staking. “I’ll stand guard over him as soon as we’re finished in here.” She turned to Giles again. “I don’t suppose your book happens to mention when he and Drusilla were in Prague?”

“Yes, it does, as a matter of fact. It says that Drusilla was killed by an angry mob in Prague in the early spring of 1996.”

“Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they don't make angry mobs like they used to, because Drusilla was hurt in that fight, but she survived.”

“She might have done in your world, Buffy, but she didn’t in ours. There are three eyewitness accounts here of her death, including one from the man who staked her. It doesn’t say what happened to Spike, however.” Giles read on for a few seconds. “In fact, his whereabouts seem to be a bit of mystery. According to this, in the middle of the brawl he simply… vanished. His disappearance was the turning point of the fight—left to fend for herself, Drusilla was overcome minutes later. They conducted a lengthy search for Spike after the dust, so to speak, had settled, but he was nowhere to be found.” Giles raised his eyes to meet Buffy’s. “Until tonight, he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

~*~

A/N: Not knowing the name of Buffy's next-door neighbour, I borrowed Mrs. Fitzgibbons from Rahirah's Barbverse fic. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. :-) 


End file.
